CAB seizes houses worth €3.3m from drug dealer

David Waldron and wife Charlene enjoyed a ‘lavish’ lifestyle, High Court judge says

THREE houses, including a €1.7m mansion in Co Wexford, have been seized from a drug dealer and his wife by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

High Court Judge Alexander Owens said CAB had claimed that since 2000, David Waldron had been ‘heavily involved in’ the illegal supply and sale of controlled drugs, and has had access to large sums of money generated by drug dealing.

‘The bureau claims that drug dealing has been the mainstay of his means and income,’ he said.

He noted that David and his wife, Charlene Waldron, had enjoyed a ‘lavish’ lifestyle with frequent foreign travel.

The evidence before the court suggested that the couple had invested up to €3.3m in buying and renovating the three properties.

He said Charlene ‘cannot but have been aware of the source of her means and of her husband’s means’.

Waldron and his wife had fiercely contested CAB’s claims, but the judge said their evidence was not sufficient to change his conclusion that the three houses were acquired directly or indirectly, with the proceeds of crime.

The properties claimed by CAB included a semi-detached house in the Riverforest Estate in Leixlip, Co Kildare, which Waldron had bought in the early 2000s for €257,000.

He then bought the second property, a semi-detached in Ratoath Road, Cabra, Dublin 7, in December 2008 for €330,000, using Riverforest – by now worth €400,000 following a two-storey extension – as equity.

‘Darview Heights’, Lahareen, Gorey, Co Wexford, where the couple now live, was built in 2015 and 2016 on a site bought for €40,000, ostensibly by Charlene’s father, the judge said.

Judge Owens described Darview Heights as a large, detached property, sitting on a hill, designed in an H formation to take advantage of the views of the surrounding countryside.

Clad in cut stone, it has three floors, a gym and bar, balconies and floor to ceiling windows.

CAB claimed proceeds of crime had been used to pay the mortgages on the Leixip and Cabra properties, and to fund improvements made to the houses.

It claimed that the purchase of the Wexford site was orchestrated by David and Charlene Waldron, and paid for using laundered proceeds of his drug dealing.

It also claimed that the cost of building Darview Heights was funded by proceeds of crime.

Judge Owens said the evidence given by the bureau related to both the criminality of Waldon, and the absence of any plausible, non-criminal explanation for the source of his money.

He said he had been told that Waldron, who claimed to work for a period as a carpenter and had Revenue records listing him as a security guard, had numerous criminal associates.

Waldron was also sentenced to imprisonment twice – first in 2000 for 12 months for an offence of possession of controlled drugs for sale or supply. In March 2015, he was convicted of violent disorder and given a two-year sentence.

Judge Owens said that Waldron had ‘hoodwinked’ a bank into giving him a mortgage to buy Riverforest, by creating a false employment history.

The CAB will apply to have a receiver appointed over the houses at a later hearing.